week of 10/16/02
 
 
 

Hunter brings dressed-down jazz to WNC
By Jay Hardwig

Charlie Hunter and Dean Bowman
When: Friday, Oct. 18.
Where: The Handlebar, Greenville
How Much: $12.50
Info: 864.233.6173 or www.handlebar-online.com

Come early to catch the amped-up blues-roots-hip-hop stylings of opener Corey Harris.
When: Saturday, Oct. 19.
Where: Stella Blue, Asheville
How Much: $12
Info: 828.236.2424 or www.stellabluelive.com


Leave it to Charlie Hunter to come to town with a vocalist from the Screaming Headless Torsos. A jazz guitarist of Blue Note fame, Hunter’s leaving behind the drums and horns this time through, playing a two-man show beside Dean Bowman of the aforementioned Torsos. It may not sound like a traditional jazz show, but the Brooklyn-based Hunter has never been a traditional jazz player.

For starters, he plays an eight-string guitar of his own invention. The instrument, comprised of five guitar strings and three bass strings, allows him to play both the bass line and the lead — a style that recalls such Hammond B3 organ masters as Jimmy Smith and Larry Young. Hunter cites both as influences, along with Charlie Christian, Muddy Waters, Thelonious Monk, Curtis Mayfield, and a host of others. Hunter’s music is jazz-but-not-exactly: there are discernible hints of blues, rock, reggae, and funk mixed in, along with a taste for musical experimentation. Hunter calls it, simply, “rhythm music.”

“I’m just a musician,” Hunter says in a recent profile in The Eugene Weekly. “I cut my teeth on jazz, but being a guitar player, you’re influenced by so many different things. I like Brazilian, African, Cuban, Puerto Rican. All of those things are in my music.” Others have called Hunter and his cronies a “jam band,” drawing comparisons to the improvisational grooves of fellow not-exactly-jazzmen Medeski, Martin, and Wood. “I think our music is an alternative to the suit-and-tie club that says you have to be well-to-do and super-intellectual to understand jazz music,” Hunter says. “We don’t have that attitude. We play at places where people aren’t interested in pigeonholing instrumental music.”

Hunter first gained fame with a succession of acclaimed albums in the mid 90s: “Bing, Bing, Bing! Ready, Set ... Shango!”, and a soulful reinterpretation of Bob Marley’s classic “Natty Dread.” Last year, he released his seventh and final album for Blue Note, “Songs from the Analog Playground,” a well-received venture that found Hunter using vocalists for the first time. Among his guests were rapper Mos Def, jazzman Kurt Ellis, and the soon-to-be-famous Norah Jones — the breakout Blue Note vocalist whose album “Come Away With Me” recently landed in the Billboard Top 10.

For the current leg of his current tour, however, he chose Screaming Headless Dean Bowman as his one and only sideman. Bowman has an eclectic resume of his own, having recorded everything from rock (the Torsos) to jazz (with Don Byron and Uri Caine) to classical (Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, natch). It’s hard to tell just what’s in store for concertgoers — a jazz-rock-groove-holler-jam? — but one thing is for certain: you won’t need suit and tie to attend.